The 6th annual GDPR survey conducted by law firms McCann Fitzgerald LLP and Mazars has revealed that almost two-thirds of Irish Employers would like access to their employees' vaccination status.
The survey shows that 56% of the organisations who completed the annual GDPR survey believed that the inability to process their employees' vaccination status had a consequential effect on their ability to make plans for returning to in-office work. The survey focussed on organisations operating within the financial services, public, technology, and other sectors. Many of the respondents are employed in firms with over 250 staff.
The survey results also reveal that many people are becoming increasingly less enamoured of the GDPR. The belief that the GDPR is beneficial to individuals has dropped 14% on the previous year's results (dropping from 83% to 69%), whereas the belief that GDPR compliance is overly burdensome on organisations has grown by 16% (from 53% last year to 69% this year).
57% of the organisations surveyed were concerned about the potential for GDPR non-compliance fines. 78% believed that the risks associated with non-compliance were on the increase and this has led to 7 in 10 organisations feeling more concerned about non-compliance now than they were in 2018 when it was introduced. The overarching concern (43%) is the potential for civil action by data subjects.
Head of technology and innovation and Partner at McCann Fitzgerald Paul Lavery said: “This year’s survey shows a decided shift in views towards the GDPR. In recent years, a gradual trend towards increasing comfort with the GDPR, and an appreciation of its benefits to individuals and organisation could be observed, however much of this positive outlook has slid backwards in this year’s figures. We can only speculate on the exact reasons for this cooling of sentiment, but a growing view that the application of the regulation to areas such as employee vaccine status or the international transfer of data, have not been in the interest of businesses, might be contributing to this perspective.”
The full report along with a very interesting and well produced video discussion of the findings is available on the McCann Fitzgerald website: HERE